FAQ about the UT Austin CL program

This page attempts to answer some common questions we get. Email us if you have others.

An overview of aspects of our computational linguistics program can also be found in Jason and Katrin's TEACH-CL08 paper.

We also recommend looking at Mark Johnson's excellent advice to graduate school applicants interested in computational linguistics.

What are good ways of knowing whether I should study computational linguistics?

If you think language is fascinating, but you want to approach it in a formal manner that allows you to actually build interesting applications and/or rigorously test hypotheses about it via computational implementations.

Or perhaps you are coming from a strong background in algorithms or machine learning and are looking for a challenging and interesting set of problems to apply them too. Language gets tricky, fast. :)

See our page about computational linguistics to learn more about the field, and also these pages:

• What is computational linguistics?
• Language technology
• More on language technology

Would you recommend getting a graduate degree from Computer Science or from Linguistics if CL is the main thing I want to study?

A CS degree probably leaves you with more options, but having the Linguistics degree is no obstacle. A number of our Linguistics graduates have gone on to industry positions. One big difference is that CS graduate probably has a better shot at a tenure track job in a linguistics department than a Linguistics grad trying for a CS position.

As important is thinking about who you would like to work with and applying to the relevant department.

Another point is that some people discover computational linguistics late in their undergraduate degree in linguistics or a related field but haven't taken much computer science; they would likely stand a better chance of admission to a linguistics department than to a CS department. If you are a quick learner and have an aptitude for programming and math, then you can still possibly get in to the linguistics program and end up doing work that is every bit as “computational” as those who go straight into CS.

I've also been told that I should start looking into which professors I'd like to do research with. I looked at your research descriptions, but since I don't have much experience in CL itself, I'm not sure what they all involve. What kinds of projects do students who are working under you do - not just the academic subjects, but also the kinds of tasks they work on?

The short answer: topics

Jason: Parsing, coreference, syntax, machine learning for various tasks. Figuring out how to get improved performance from less data, and whether that can aid language documentation. Using parallel texts to bootstrap part-of-speech taggers.

Katrin: word meaning, including word sense disambiguation and selectional preferences (e.g., is the object of the verb “shoot” more likely to be “deer” or “hunter”). She not only looks at computational models for these, but compares them to human judgments on a variety of tasks. Semantic role labeling.

- This is a very abbreviated response that would be nice to flesh out more.

Is there anything I should be doing between now and when I apply to help my chances of being accepted?

If you still can do so, take courses that are relevant to computational linguistics.

Try to have a clear statement of purpose that discusses what you are interested in working on, as specifically as you can be. Talk about specifics of work you might have already done (including work in industry) and why it is interesting and whether you did anything particularly innovative to deal with the task. If possible, provide a good writing sample (preferably one that relates to a topic in Linguistics or CS that shows your ability to think independently and write clearly). If you are in a position to do so, make your honors thesis about a topic related to computational linguistics, or if you aren't doing an honors thesis, try to subvert a class paper so that it is as relevant as possible. Make sure you have strong letters of reference, and get good scores on the GRE. :)

What sort of jobs (and at what universities and/or companies) do graduates in comp ling from UT typically get?

Both academic and industry. See our page about graduate placement.

How many papers are published every year by CL faculty and students at UT Austin?

We regularly publish at the main CL venues, including at ACL, EMNLP, IJCAI, EACL, and NAACL. Yuk Wah Wong and Ray Mooney even won best paper at ACL in 2007 and Pascal Denis and Jason Baldridge won best student paper at NAACL in 2007. Have a look at the list of CL publications for our group.

We seek to get new students up to speed as quickly as possible so that they can also submit their work to conferences by their second year.

I'm not sure if I want to get a masters or a PhD - do you have any advice about how to choose?

It isn't a big deal. Many people start in the masters and then go on to do the PhD, while others start in the PhD and end with a masters. We have recently reconfigured our Linguistics curriculum so that it is completely transparent to shift from one to the other.

Nonetheless, our recommendation is to go ahead and apply for the PhD. If you get in and later decide to shift to a masters, its quite straightforward. To go from masters to PhD will require a later faculty vote after you've been in the program. (Which basically always works out as long as you are doing well and have a faculty member interested in working with you.)

I've completed my masters work elsewhere and have been developing my research in some detail already. Is it a possible to finish this research in the University of Texas under the supervision of any of the linguistics department faculty?

It isn't possible to go straight into dissertation writing straight away. You would need to apply through the usual channels, be admitted to the program, and take coursework before you could work on the thesis. If you feel we are a good match for you and don't mind doing coursework again, then you are certainly encouraged to apply.

In some cases, some courses, like Phonology I or Syntax I, can be skipped, but one can never skip the entire course sequence. One of the key aspects of taking courses is that professors get to know you and evaluate you before taking you on as a PhD student.

What is the timeline for studying CL in the Linguistics department?

You do 2-3 years of coursework. At the 3 year mark, you need to submit a qualifying paper, and if that is accepted you advance to PhD candidacy and can then be officially taken on as a student by a faculty member.

The qualifying paper is the major milestone. One also must take two seminar courses that involve writing a paper, and one of those must be outside your major area. There are no qualifying exams.

The linguistics department has recently changed its course requirements, leaving much more opportunity for students to take advanced CL seminars in our department as well as courses in other departments.

We expect students studying CL to finish in five to six years.

I think I'm interested because my undergrad linguistics minor was so interesting that I started considering a career in linguistics, but I also don't want to stop using my skills in computer science (my major).

You certainly don't have to give up any CS. Both Katrin and Jason have degrees from CS departments (Saarbrucken and Edinburgh), and their work is squarely within the realm of research topics that are pursued in CS departments and require the same amount of formal rigor and programming aptitude. Some of our courses are designed for linguistics who are learning their first steps in programming or on linguistically oriented topics in syntax and semantics, but the largely part of our graduate courses would fit well in a CS department. (At least one undergraduate course, Natural Language Processing, is already cross-listed as both Linguistics and CS.)

What is the funding situation, generally?

Katrin and Jason regularly apply for external funding to support our students, and some of the other faculty members (notably, David Beaver) also hire CL students. Most students are also able to get 2-3 years of TAships (sometimes more). However, this is usually a competitive, year-by-year basis. There are also university fellowships, and we get at least one of these a year for our best students (and CL students have historically done well in this). So, in all likelihood, students studying computational linguistics in the linguistics department have been fully funded for the whole period as long as they are progressing well and doing good work.

If I have TAship or RAship, what will I be paid?

The stipend for incoming students is around $6000-$6500 per semester (in 2008). Your pay depends on various factors like whether you have a masters degree already, how long you've been at the university, etc, so whether you are an RA or TA doesn't really matter.

How much funding is available for grad student travel (for conferences, field work, etc.)?

There's not much funding available for the lone student. However, Katrin and I have been bringing in grant money that has allowed us to cover students costs to go to conferences, so the compling students working with us have been able to get their costs covered when they are working on our projects.

What about health care?

RAs and TAs are covered for health insurance (though any dependents will cost extra). You can see the details for this year's plan here:

http://www.utexas.edu/hr/irg/index.html